TFOS: Freddy On The Loose, Part 17

by

Rodford Edmiston

Note: This story uses background and concepts from the Teenagers From Outer Space role-playing game, Copyright 2001 R. Talsorian Games, Inc. The characters and story are Copyright 2001 Rodford Edmiston Smith.

Adventure 17: Karen Gets Drunk

"I really don't like this," muttered Freddy, tugging her costume into place.

"In the first place, promoting some of the store's products with a magic show was your idea," said Karen. "In the second place, you show almost that much as a cheerleader!"

"Yeah, but that little difference is pretty significant," said Freddy, pouting.

"Well, just remember the bonus we're getting for this," Karen pointed out.

"I just want to know why I have to be a girl."

"It's traditional," said Karen, rolling her eyes. "All magicians' assistants are attractive females."

Freddy examined herself in the staff dressing room mirror and nodded.

"Not bad. I don't like showing cleavage, but I'm man enough to admit that I've got enough to get a man's attention."

"Hey!" said Karen.

"In your case, it's quality over quantity," said Freddy, smoothly. "I mean, you're a natural girl, you know how to use it automatically. I have to fake it. I need every advantage I can get."

"Flatterer," said Karen, blushing. She gave her currently-female boyfriend a sisterly kiss. "Okay, it's showtime!"

"I just wish we'd had time to practice," muttered Freddy. "We don't even know what this guy's gonna do!"

"Oh, hush!"

There was just time for the girls to be introduced to The Great Marvello! before the first show started. There was already a crowd in the store, thanks to the flyers Freddy, Karen and others had placed earlier. The trio - magician and assistants - climbed onto the back of the small, temporary stage at the rear of the store while Sooltong introduced the act out front.

The magician went on stage to a modest round of applause. He thanked the crowd, and engaged in some patter while he performed a few warm-up tricks.

"This guy's terrible," whispered Freddy.

"And now, if my lovely assistants will give me some - uh - assistance..."

"That's our cue," said Karen, stepping on stage.

Forcing a smile, Freddy followed.

The Great Marvello! did a few more simple, standard tricks, not very well. Then he brought Freddy forward.

"Of course, a science which is advanced enough looks like magic. Here at Alien Goods, we sell items which are very advanced, indeed! Here's an example."

He took what looked like a length of flexible metallic rope off a stand, whipped it through the air with a flourish, then snapped it around Freddy's waist.

"This is a pair of linked rings. Unlike a magician's linking rings these... well, let me show you!"

He stepped behind Freddy, grabbed the startled sometimes-girl under the arms and lifted. There was a gasp from the crowd, but at first Freddy couldn't tell what had happened. Then she realized that her legs were still standing there.

"Yipe!" yelped Freddy, giving a little jump.

Unfortunately, that was enough to cause her bottom half to fall over. Her lower body lay there, legs kicking, while Freddy helplessly waved her arms.

"You see, there's no distance between the rings, no matter how far apart you move them!"

"It's a fake!" said a fat, drunk guy in the front of the crowd.

The Great Marvello! set Freddy's top half on a table, took something else from the pile of gadgets, and approached an understandably wary Karen.

"Shouldn't we put her back together, first?" she asked.

"Oh, I'm sure she can pull herself back together," said The Great Marvello!, waggling his eyebrows at the audience. "Now, I'm sure some of you have used the Timestop Makeup Kit (R). What you may not realize is that it comes in several grades. Observe!"

Freddy tried to twist around to see what this creep was doing to her girlfriend, but the motion caused the table to wobble alarmingly. Instead she concentrated on her legs, kicking her lower half over towards her upper. The feeling of dislocation was quite bizarre, but Freddy was determined. Even when she realized she was giving a prize view of her panties to the audience she was not deterred.

"There!" said The Amazing Marvello!, stepping back to reveal his handiwork. "If this kit can do this to a pretty girl, imagine what it could do for you!"

Freddy jerked around, and had a glimpse of a confused Karen wearing clown makeup just before the table toppled. Freddy's top half wound up falling onto her bottom half. She landed with a grunt, and her top half rolled away. As Freddy gathered her senses, she realized she was looking at her own crotch from a very unfamiliar angle.

This has possibilities... Freddy realized. But first...

She shoved the fallen table out of the way, dragged her two halves together, and searched for a way to take the ring off. After several fumbled attempts, and a couple of repositionings, she managed to find the latch. There was a click, and the ring went limp in her hands and fell free. Freddy, together again, stood, outraged.

"Ah, I knew you could do it! And just in time!"

Before Freddy could react, The Great Marvello! dragged her over to the table with the gadgets. He deftly snapped a choker around Freddy's cute neck. Freddy tried to express her outrage, but to her surprise couldn't make a sound!

"Have a wife, kid, or pet who makes too much noise? This silencer collar will solve the problem! Or, for extra amusement, you can use the converter option."

"GET THIS THING OFF ME!" shouted Freddy, in a basso profundo which rattled the stage. "EEP!!"

She closed her mouth in wide-eyed surprise. She saw The Great Marvello! push a button on some sort of control he had in his hand, and tried again. This time her voice sounded like a donkey's braying. The Great Marvello! smiled, nudged something, and nodded. Freddy, face bright red, jumped up and down in place, screaming like a full orchestra falling off a cliff. Abruptly even that stopped, leaving the young woman unable to make a sound. Freddy desperately tugged at the collar, but it wouldn't come off.

"Aren't mute buttons wonderful? Oh, and the lock switch is on the remote!"

"It's a fake!" opined the fat, drunk guy.

Karen, meanwhile, had scrubbed the clown makeup off on the backdrop. She wheeled on The Great Marvello! stomping towards him with murder in her eyes.

"Ah, a volunteer!"

He took a Grabbit Stick from his collection of alien goods and used it to lift Karen helplessly into the air.

"You've all seen juicers of various kinds," he announced, as he whipped the cover off a gadget which looked alarmingly like a giant blender. "Well, here's one that will work on the kids! It's a great way to keep them out of trouble - or out of your hair - on snow days!"

Freddy stared, unable to believe what he was seeing, as Karen was lowered into the maw of the machine. The Great Marvello pushed a button, and the lid snapped closed. A deafening grinding noise began, and Karen dropped, startled, out of sight into the body of the machine. The machine abruptly stopped. There was no sign of Karen.

"Not only does this reduce your loved ones reversibly to liquid, it concentrates, for easier storage or transport. Behold!"

The Great Marvello! opened a small door in the machine and pulled out a beaker of thick, pinkish-grey fluid.

"It's a fake!"

Freddy stared, mouth open, silent without needing the collar to produce that state, feeling faint.

"I did say it is fully reversible," The Great Marvello! announced, placing the beaker on yet another small table. "As I will demonstrate in a few moments.

Freddy, berserk, launched herself in a silent scream at the magician. Who, unfortunately, still had the Grabbit Stick. He smirked at the floating Freddy, then turned back to his audience. And paled.

"I'll prove it's a fake," said the drunk, reaching for the beaker. "That's just a chocolate milkshake!"

Before anyone could stop him he poured the liquefied and concentrated Karen down his throat. Unfortunately, she went in one indivisible glomph. The drunk nearly choked to death before the stuff slid down into his stomach.

The Great Marvello!, startled, let Freddy drift too close. Freddy grabbed for him, and was startled when the magician's hair came off in her hands... along with his entire face! The Great Marvello! turned and fled through the backdrop before anyone could get a look at his actual appearance, and Freddy dropped to the floor with an undignified thump.

"Whoa," said the fat, drunk guy. "I feel strange."

Sooltong was standing beside the wide-eyed man, frantically reading through something on a datapad. Freddy groaned, rose to her feet and grabbed the remote, which - fortunately - The Great Marvello! had dropped. She took a moment to find the off button, then yanked the collar lose. Freddy then turned, hopped off the stage and confronted the drunk.

"You drank my girlfriend!" Freddy exclaimed.

"Huh?" said the drunk. He sneered. "Oh. Yeah, I thought you two were a couple."

Freddy colored, and sputtered, but before she could do anything was interrupted by Sooltong.

"We to the juicer must bring him immediately! Recoverable from this is, but of essence is the time expired!"

"Don't say expired," yelped Freddy, grabbing the drunk.

"Hey, cute thing, whatcha' doing," said the drunk, confused. "Sorry, babe, you're cute, but too young for me."

"Get him in the juicer! Find something I must!"

While Sooltong hurried into the storeroom, Freddy made her Cool roll and thought of something.

"You're the one yelling that it's a fake. If you're so sure, come up and try it!"

The drunk guy was suddenly wary, but the combination of challenge and derisive comments from the audience forced him on. He was so drunk he and Freddy took several tries to get him on the stage. In the process his hands repeatedly went places they shouldn't have. Freddy was livid by the time she got him on the platform and reached for the Grabbit Stick. Freddy made sure to squat demurely instead of bending over, and kept an eye on the man the whole time she was vulnerable. Finally, she was able to use the Grabbit Stick to lift the startled man into container, then shut the lid.

"Hey!" the man yelled, pounding on the transparent wall of the container. "I've changed my mind! Let me out!"

Sooltong reappeared with an attachment he put on the bottom of the juicer. This had two spouts leading out at wide angles. The store owner put a large cup under each.

"Please, one moment for special adjustment," he informed Freddy, bending to open a panel and tinker.

"And now, ladies and gentlemen, for our next trick," said Freddy, turning back to the audience. "We will separate an ugly jerk from a pretty girl!"

As if on cue, the machine ground to life. The drunk, wide-eyed with terror, dropped out of sight. Two streams of sludge, of slightly different colors, poured out of the spouts, into the cups. The machine stopped.

"My husband!" screamed a woman in the crowd.

Freddy glanced at Sooltong, not sure what the next step was. The shop owner took one of the cups and poured it into a spout on the side of the machine. A button was touched, and the machine dnuorg ylision into life, Karen suddenly rising up from the bottom... wearing the drunk's clothes.

The audience went crazy with applause. Freddy and Sooltong, playing to the crowd, smiled and bowed. Freddy put a table beside the device, climbed on and helped Karen out. She had a great deal of trouble, and not only because of the oversized clothing, fumbling several times before finally standing on the table, weaving.

"Wow," she said, "I feel really, really strange."

"You're drunk!" Freddy hissed, smelling the alcohol on her breath.

"No, no, no," said Karen, waving a finger back in forth in front of his face. "You know I don't drink."

She turned and walked off the table, Freddy barely able to get under her to break her fall.

Sooltong, meanwhile, had poured the drunk's remains into the blender and was now reconstituting him. Naturally, he appeared wearing Karen's magician's assistant's outfit.

"Ooh..." he groaned, disoriented at his sudden, forced sobriety. "What happened? Yah! I'm wearing girl clothes!"

"No problem," said Freddy, smiling sweetly, as she grabbed a Boy/Girl Gun.

While Freddy took Karen back stage to tend her, Sooltong used the Grabbit Stick to move the fat woman out of the blender and onto the store floor. Fortunately, the costume was of the self-adjusting variety.

* * *

"So Sooltong let us unpack and use an autodoc. Me to heal the bruises and contusions, Karen to get undrunk," Freddy finished, as he and Karen finished relating their adventure to the newspaper club, later.

"Oh, I wish I'd been there," snickered Ramet.

"I don't understand why people get drunk," muttered Karen. "I couldn't move right, I couldn't talk right, I couldn't even think right!"

"Well, most people don't get drunk the way you did," said Hub, manfully keeping a straight face.

"Did they ever find the real The Great Marvello!?" asked Talli.

"Yeah. He was tied up in a dumpster in his underwear," Freddy explained.

"How they got a dumpster in his underwear I'll never know," said Hub, right before bursting out laughing.

"You sound like a concrete mixer having an asthma attack," muttered Freddy.

"I wonder if this is connected to all those 'pranks' which were going around the school a while back," mused Talli.

"You think that was the guy?" asked Freddy, startled.

"Or one of them. Or someone they hired."

"Argh. I let him slip right out of my hands."

"Well, you did have more urgent things to worry about," purred Karen, cuddling up to him. She gave him a very non-chaste kiss on the mouth. "Thank you."

Freddy colored, grinned, and suddenly flipped genders.

"Oh, no! Not again! I thought I was stabilized."

"Well, that was quite a kiss," snickered Talli, sidling up to him on the other side. "Let me try."

She turned Freddy's head to bring their mouths together, and gave her a passionate lip massage. When she broke off, Freddy was back to male, and looking a bit faint.

"See? You can thank me later."

"You have got to get that fixed," huffed Karen, glaring alternately at the alien girl and Freddy. "I can't have you going girl on me every time we... uh, you know."

"I guess using the Boy/Girl Gun on me for the magic show gave me a relapse."

"Well, Karen, you'll just have to be sure and kiss Freddy twice each time," smirked Ramet.

"Sounds like a plan to me," sighed Freddy, dreamily.

"Well, I'm not kissing a girl, even Freddy!" said Karen, firmly.

"I will volunteer, and spare you that burden," said Ramet, nobly.

"Well, I'm not kissing a guy!" huffed Freddy.

Ramet shifted into a blond, buxom young woman, in effect an older version of female Freddy.

"Who's a guy?" she asked, coyly, batting her eyelashes.

"You're still a guy inside!" snapped Freddy.

"You're still a guy inside when you're a girl, too," said Talli. "That's why I kissed you!"

"I'm not kissing a girl!" snapped Karen.

"What if you were a guy at the time?" asked Hub, curious.

Karen started to reply, then paused, looking uncertain.

"Well, I wouldn't kiss her if she were a guy," said Freddy. "It'd still be Karen inside. Uh, I mean..."

"Yeah, I'm getting confused, too," sighed Karen. She hugged her boyfriend. "Well, right now you're a guy and I'm a gal, so let's kiss while we can!"

"Now that I can agree to!" laughed Freddy.

End Part Seventeen